


One of 1001

by Wheredigo



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Conversations, Drabble, Established Relationship, Literary References & Allusions, M/M, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, Post-Season/Series 03, Wordcount: 100-500, canon-typical blatant symbolism, short but not exactly sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-28
Updated: 2016-02-28
Packaged: 2018-05-23 16:27:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6122482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wheredigo/pseuds/Wheredigo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will and Hannibal discuss the procrastination of their relationship's inevitable conclusion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One of 1001

**Author's Note:**

> Honestly, this conversation just popped into my head the other day, and I couldn't focus on my schoolwork until I wrote it down. Hope you enjoy.

Will is sitting on the floor of a stranger's home, petting a stranger's dog as Hannibal looks on fondly from an armchair. The dog doesn’t know what they’ve done to its owners; it only knows that someone is petting it, and perhaps Will finds this comforting.   
“Why do you always care for the dogs?” Hannibal asks. "Does protecting animals somehow expunge your conscience? A compensation for your darker deeds?"  
Will laughs, short and humorless. "No," he says. "Nothing like that. I just genuinely like them. I'm fresh out of illusions about my own nature, or about what we're doing here. I don't care what you might do to me, but I just don't want to hurt the dogs."  
Hannibal ponders this for a moment.  
"Do you think I'm going to kill you, Will?" he asks.  
Will pauses, and straightens up. The dog, no longer receiving affection, lopes off to some other part of the house. Will turns, to sit at Hannibal's feet.   
"I know you are. Or at least you'll try, eventually. That's the only way this ends--with one or both of us dead." He leans forward, crossing his arms and resting his elbows on Hannibal's knees. He rests his face sideways on his arms. The gentleness of the action contradicts the harshness of his words, and Hannibal smiles at him, gently touching his soft curls.  
"Till death do us part,” Hannibal says, stroking Will’s cheek with his thumb, tracing the scar along his jawline. “Is that how you see our relationship? As a lamb being led to slaughter?"  
"No," Will replies after a moment's thought, considering Hannibal's other hand, now resting on his thigh. "That's not quite the right way to describe it. I know where I'm going, I know what you are."  
"How do you see yourself, then?" Hannibal asks. Will turns his head upright, to gaze up at Hannibal's bemused smile, and chooses his words carefully.   
"Scheherazade," he says, quietly, with a mysterious smile.   
“A storyteller?” Hannibal smirks, and Will knows that he’s feigning confusion. He already knows what Will means, but he wants to hear him say it.  
“A concubine,” Will replies, an addition rather than a correction.“Appealing to your sense of wonder. Or excitement,” he adds. “Making sure I stay interesting enough that you’d rather have me alive.”   
“But you’ve already given away the ending,” Hannibal points out, and Will shrugs.  
“People get so upset about ‘spoilers,’” he says. “You can know what’s coming and still enjoy getting there.”  
Hannibal smiles, still working his fingers through Will’s curly hair. He leans forward, and Will straightens to look up into his eyes.   
“Well then,” he says, “Tell me a story.”


End file.
